On December 3, the President of the Republic of Korea proclaimed martial law, but ended it the same day in the face of popular, parliamentary and even military opposition. The South Korean people don't like presidents to take too much power, but they want it to be effective and paternal. Confucius has been there. Since the 1950s, South Koreans have had 25 years of partial or absolute military dictatorships. They express themselves with violence. In the 1970s, their president-dictator-general Park Chung-hee was assassinated by military elements disgusted by the monarchical drift of his power. These same officers succeeded him collectively, then attempted to maintain a militarized regime worse than the previous one.
This new regime bloodily repressed pro-democracy students (at least 200 dead) which led to eight years of protests which pushed the junta to gradually restore democracy. However, the current conservatives, who continue the ideas of the military autocrats, persist electorally.
The proof: in 2014, Park Geun-hye, the daughter of the general assassinated 35 years earlier, was elected! However, she was quickly caught up in various probity scandals. A popular wave put an end to all this: hundreds of thousands of demonstrators took turns every evening, in the streets, in silent protest against Madame Park, in a huge sit-in, without violence, until her deputies turned against her and inflicted an “impeachment”, that is to say a trial before the Supreme Court and a sentence to 25 years in prison in 2017, from which a presidential pardon came to deliver her in 2022.
And here the people elect in 2022, Mr. Yoon Suk Yeol, a very conservative prosecutor, by a tiny margin, for a non-renewable mandate of five years. On the same side as Madame Park! Conservatives are tenacious.
In 2024, the parliamentary elections – the mandate of a deputy is four years and does not coincide with that of the president – saw the conservative party completely outvoted. But the regime is presidential! This is yet another example of the deleterious effect of the desynchronization of the legislative and presidential elections, as all French people now know. Yoon was assailed by the steamroller of the now majority opposition: all his bills were blocked, and several of his ministers were subjected to dismissal procedures, the famous “impeachment”.
Yoon undoubtedly made his case worse by attempting martial law to break the paralysis. Let's take Yoon's arguments to justify himself this December 3:
“Protect free democracy against anti-national forces operating covertly in the Free Republic of (South) Korea and their threats to subvert the state and public safety. »
Yoon let the idea of a risk of treason in favor of North Korea float! Hyper-rigidity towards the North is the specificity of the conservatives. Obviously, from a Western perspective, the South Korean opposition is absolutely not anti-national. For a South Korean, is it a betrayal to negotiate with a tyrant from the North? Yes. So, Yoon has drifted less than one might think. And perhaps he was expecting a positive signal from the United States, he who had the privilege of addressing, in his excellent English, the American elected representatives in the House of Representatives in 2023. And he had a telephone exchange with Donald Trump on November 7, 2024 lasting twelve minutes… not enough to explain his martial law plan.
The same day martial law was declared, the deputies returned to the National Assembly, under the noses of the paratroopers who disobeyed their orders not to let anyone pass. Martial law requires a favorable vote from half of the deputies, and one wonders if Yoon really intended to skip this step! This is also what he will be accused of during his future trial, because the National Assembly “impeached” him, that is to say accused him of crime against the republic, this who suspends his functions pending a maximum six-month trial before the Supreme Court.
Still, his martial law was canceled by the deputation that fateful afternoon of December 3, and Yoon accepted this decision. On the other hand, if we think that Yoon should have resigned immediately after the cancellation of martial law, this means that we do not grant him any mitigating circumstances. But we should: North Korea is a real danger, and the institutional blockade launched by the opposition was partisan, not patriotic. Finally, it is no one's fault if the South Korean Constitution makes the standoff between the presidency and the National Assembly almost automatic.
No side had accepted cohabitation, as there had been in the past in similar circumstances. The constitutional system has reached its final impasse. All this while Japan, an indispensable ally, is weakening. North Korea is embarking on a hot war, sending 12,000 soldiers to Kursk, certainly to help Putin's war but also to learn how to wage a real war. In fact, the opposition is tired of their peninsular cold war. Now this was probably not the time to exasperate the president.
The damage to South Korean democracy is serious: the temptation for adventure is taking root. A future president will know how to do it better. Emmanuel Macron has something to ponder. The president against Parliament, a recipe for disaster in presidential systems less vertical than that of the United States. There would need to be a constitutional mechanism to either constrain the President or the Assembly. This in-between is too dangerous, as the South Korean case proves. Above all, there should be a fraternal patriotic spirit.
Harold Hyman,
